Fools Gold, in Hunting Stories

So early last summer I was hiking up the headwaters of the Temperance River. I was looking for a mess of trout. Much to my surprise, and even more for some young lad who was looking for lords knows what in a stream bank , who by the way, I didnÊ¼t see, who by the way, didnÊ¼t notice me, until I was casting over him. Then he yelled so loud I about soiled myself midstream. I immediately slipped and fell in the river. LetÊ¼s just say I was hot. The kid said I looked like a relic from the past. Like a lost miner from his just finished elementary school history class.

I really canÊ¼t see myself with a gold minerÊ¼s pan or a thickly nested case of dynamite out prospecting for gold from the good old days of yore. To be blunt about the explosive sticks, Fuses IÊ¼ve lit over the years may have been short, but they never blew me up. Some laws in life were passed to protect you, from me, and thatÊ¼s why I know itÊ¼s illegal for me, to play with pyrotechnics.

Jr here thought he found some gold or copper in the river. He had a whole pile of shiny wet rocks. I know I was never meant to be rich, just possibly live next to the riches. That warm summer day I was swimming in the riches.

I will admit scratching around in the bottom of a stream has its potential upside for me with respect to trout, but IÊ¼m usually not plying the river for precious metals as much as IÊ¼m looking forward to frying a pan full of what could be swimming in the river.

Fishing Prospectors like me leave expensive metals in lake bottoms attached to stumps. River rocks latch on to my shiny trinkets of foolÊ¼s gold I set shimmering through swift clear currents. ItÊ¼s a value added style of fishing IÊ¼m earning my way into, one lure at a time.

Now if you can imagine me trying to reestablish my upright posture in a rock strewn river and all the dampness one hat can leak across my fretted brow you may be assured I was just abit put off with a shrieking Jr. So as im rising, the kidÊ¼s mom showed up real fast and wanted to know what all the fuss was about.. Like I did something wrong? Before I could gurgle the river water out of my mouth completely she let me have it for sneaking up river and startling

Her little boy.

Luckily my fly rod was broke down, and not broken in two. One of my hip boots was half full of water and my fishing vest was drenched, which in hindsight now, probably soaked my personal fuse, so I never blew up.. I never know what IÊ¼m gonna find in a creek. But that day last summer was a real mother load of excitement.